This is a discussion on Knowing when you're beat within the online poker forums, in the Cash Games section; OK, how should this have been played out,
5 players 10c/20c NL hold em, SB is a maniac, (one of the worst i have

5 players 10c/20c NL hold em, SB is a maniac, (one of the worst i have ever encountered) BB is a tight/passive, UTG is a semi loose/semi aggressive PLAYER 4 (me) is a tight/aggressive and BUTTON is a semi loose/passive.

Fold to the massive 10BB raise. Even though he's a player, I don't like gambling with this hand. It's a bad position because considering he's a 'player' type, he'll likely make bets if the board brings overcards, and I just plain don't like messing around with a nut like that and a holding of only 77. Implied odds give a small argument of getting alot of chips off of the gambler, but I personally fold here.

#4

25th July 2006, 5:27 PM

starfall [571]

Online Poker at: Stars

Game: Omaha Hi/Lo

Even with it being a complete maniac and a fairly loose player, it's got to be hard to call the all-in... although if UTG had to think long and hard about calling, then you have to wonder if it's a middle pair like yours (could be ahead or behind), or whether it's a hand like AK, AQ or AJ (at which point you're slightly behind). Given that the maniac is liable to be contributing to the pot with a worse hand than 7's, that gives about 50% odds on being better than one hand and better odds of having the better hand than the other, so I guess a call isn't too bad... although as with most pocket pairs, they fare better when there are plenty more chips left to be won off opponents, rather than the pot containing most of the chips...
Assuming you take the (probably +ve expectation but hard to play and high variance) call option, then the play was still poor, because he made his trips, and while UTG could have just hit a straight, they wouldn't have been likely to call the initial raise with those cards, and they already checked, so you make either a value bet or a larger bet to push off the UTG player if you suspect they may have a flush or straight draw. Just checking gives the UTG player a chance to overtake Button when Button could be fairly confident that he was ahead on the turn...